Hi John, do you have any photos of the space you could post? That might be helpful. In general, it's trickier to make wood floors work with wood stained cabinets, but I've done it. Since you don't want reddish floors, I'd aim for a cooler brown - more towards a walnut. I would NOT do ebony floors; those super-dark floors are impossible to keep looking clean. They show dust, lint, grass, etc. Also, what stain product is your contractor using? Most come in pre-mixed colors. That may determine the palette you have to choose from. Other stains can be tinted or adjusted if needed. Adding green to a stain color, for example, will help cut the red of the oak floors. You have to go easy though, you don't want to end up with a noticeable green tone. You're welcome to email me directly if you want more info - I don't check messages on here very often. Thanks Info@PaintColorHelp.com

I recommend the finish as the only thing on the flooring. You will want to use the highest priced water based finish you can afford (oil based or oil modified products turn orange...which would be a snick lighter than what you have now). You would have the refinisher put down two coats of gloss and then a finishing coat of the matte. That way you have the lower sheen level without the haziness of matte.

Update: I had to make a choice this morning, they're going to start staining today. I decided to go with Provencial. I'm terrified of too much red (I think I'm traumatized by the RED floors that were here when I moved in...), and while I actually like Nutmeg the best in the swatches I think that a whole house of it is going to be too blah. Hope I made the right choice....'cause I'm going to be stuck with it. I'm not too thrilled with these flooring guys. They're pretty well known and highly regarded in this area, but they are *really* negative against water-based finish (they keep mentioning the downsides of it in conversation), even though I was very clear that is what I want and am paying for, they didn't put down good swatches initially (swatched over a rough sand, then re-did and water-popped the swatches), didn't topcoat the swatches -- I did that myself at 11:00 pm last night to help me decide). Couple other things, too, but all I can do at this point is just judge the final result/workmanship. From what I can tell so far, that is excellent (running in new wood, smoothing out transitions, etc) -- but we shall see when all is done...

We are leaving the carpet. I was thinking I should paint the entire main area (kitchen, entry, living room) one color. Thoughts if I should do that. I have samples of Edgecomb Gray from BM that I liked not too gray but more neutral. I will look at the other colors too